Daily Martyrology for November 20

In 869, in England, the martyrdom of St. Edmund. He was a revered king of East Anglia who was killed by the invading Vikings. His body was later found incorrupt, and he became venerated as a model of heroism and holiness. His life was written by Abbo of Fleury (November 13) at the request of St. Dunstan (May 19), and about 1020, King Knut founded the abbey of Bury St. Edmund in his honor.

In 1002, St. Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim. He was ordained a priest by St. Willigis (February 23) and served as a tutor for the future emperor Otto III. As bishop of Hildesheim, he was a wise and able pastor, and built the church and monastery of St. Michael in Hildesheim. He made profession as a Benedictine not long before his death.

In 1922, Blessed Mary Fortunata Viti. When she was not yet fifteen, her mother died, her father became incapacitated, and she was left to raise her younger siblings. When she was twenty-four, she entered the Benedictine convent of Veroli as a lay sister. She spent the next seventy-two years working and praying, "great in her littleness", as Pope Paul VI noted when she was beatified in 1967. Several monks at Mt. Angel Abbey promoted her beatification.